


merry fucking christmas

by downtheroadandupthehill



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 08:17:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downtheroadandupthehill/pseuds/downtheroadandupthehill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leave it to Bahorel to get into a fight on Christmas Eve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	merry fucking christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deHavilland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deHavilland/gifts).



He’s stopped being surprised by Bahorel showing up at his door at random hours of the evening and early morning. It isn’t limited to weekends, either--a Tuesday evening at 9 p.m. is as good a time for a fight as any, apparently, even on Christmas Eve.

Bahorel grins at him when Combeferre opens the door, and Combeferre can see how his teeth are stained pink with blood, although at least none of them are missing. Combeferre is a doctor, not a dentist. Then again, he can’t do much for the fresh bruises blossoming along Bahorel’s jaw either.

Neither of them speak, and Bahorel’s grin doesn’t falter while Combeferre just looks him over with pursed lips. Any of their other friends, and Combeferre might show, might feel, a glimmer of concern that is simply outright wasted on Bahorel. Bahorel is in element, a bloodied, happy mess on Combeferre’s doorstep, and Combeferre knows he doesn’t really have to worry.

He moves to the side, so that Bahorel can move past him. He takes up the entire doorway as he passes through, brushes against Combeferre’s hip as he does so. Might even be doing it on accident--an accident of an enormous man and an old, small apartment. He goes to sit on Combeferre’s sofa like he owns it, moving the pile of books there from the cushions to the coffee table so that he can stretch his legs out.

The antiseptic spray and roll of bandage is still on the bookshelf from the last time Bahorel was here, only four days ago. Most of their friends have gone home for the holidays, and Bahorel tends to get into more trouble on his own when he doesn’t have the others behind him to worry about, Combeferre supposes. Maybe they should go out for a drink or two together, before the break is over. Combeferre has held his own before, throwing a punch or two at protests when the situation was dire enough, and Bahorel was the one who showed him how to hold his fist, curl his thumb so he didn’t break it. He grabs the antiseptic and bandages, not staring at Bahorel who is already stripping his shirt off with catlike--no, lionlike--grace, despite the pain he must be in.

Combeferre sits on edge of the couch beside him, allowing his eyes to linger on the bruises along his ribs. They’re milder than the ones that Bahorel has had before, and by just the sight of them it looks as though nothing is broken. He reaches out to touch, anyway, and despite keeping his hands gentle, that is what makes Bahorel shudder--Combeferre suspects it’s not from the pain. He feels the line of his mouth quirk upwards in a semblance of a smile, and presses just a little harder to listen to Bahorel’s answering groan.

Nothing’s broken, and there’s not much to be done for bruises, but the knuckles of Bahorel’s right hand are split wide open, and he keeps dragging them along the legs of his jeans in order to stop from getting blood on Combeferre’s couch. Combeferre takes his hand now to spray it with antiseptic, make sure it doesn’t get infected. Not that it matters--Combeferre suspects the wounds will split back open before they fully heal, and Bahorel will be back. He usually is, knuckles in a permanent state of bloody and bruised whether he wins or loses the fight.

“So what happened?” Combeferre asks, finally breaking the silence between them. He starts to unroll the bandage, measuring with his eyes how much he’ll need.

“Fucking Santa,” Bahorel snorts, and Combeferre can’t help but smile a little wider. “This fucking asshole Santa out on the street. He was drunk off his ass, but fuck, he was tougher than he looked. He was an asshole to some kid, some kid who came up with his mom, because this guy was dressed up as Santa, obviously. He made the kid cry, though, and I told him to fuck off. And.” He shrugs. Bahorel hasn’t stopped grinning, and now Combeferre is, too. He’s still holding Bahorel’s hand, although he tied off the bandage around his knuckles halfway through the story.

“How very noble of you, defending children from Santa,” he says dryly, sliding his hand back up to the bruises on Bahorel’s ribs. Bahorel groans again, and now it’s Combeferre’s turn to smirk.

“Santa was a fuckface,” Bahorel growls. And he’s impatient, pretends he hates it when he’s teased--so Combeferre isn’t surprised when Bahorel pulls him in by the back of his neck to kiss him hard and bite down on his lower lip. Combeferre can taste the blood that’s still in the other man’s mouth, and kisses him back for a while before murmuring against his mouth:

“We’re not breaking another couch.”

Bahorel grumbles but lets him go. If Combeferre were smaller, like Enjolras or Jehan, Bahorel would probably just laugh and carry him off to bed over his shoulder, but as it is, Combeferre has to stand up first, with Bahorel following along behind him.

But they’re both impatient now, even if Combeferre is better at hiding it, at waiting, at drawing this out long and slow each and every time, because he likes to test Bahorel and he’s almost certain that Bahorel likes it too--but right now it’s hot and hurried and there are too many buttons on his shirt and there isn’t enough skin against skin, not yet. He feels Bahorel’s fingers gripping his shoulders, tight enough to leave some rather different sorts of bruises that in no way at all match Bahorel’s own, and then there’s Bahorel’s teeth on the back of his neck, leaving marks that he doesn’t bother to soothe afterwards with his tongue.

Combeferre’s apartment is small, and cramped, and packed with too many bookshelves packed with too many books, and Combeferre himself isn’t a small man, but with Bahorel’s bulk pressing against him, pushing him toward the bedroom--and their eyes are half-lidded, and they’re distracted, what with the press of his hand there and his mouth just here--

But Combeferre is still surprised by the sound of something rather large crashing to the floor, accompanied by the sound of glass breaking.

Because somewhere along the way, Bahorel had knocked over the crooked Christmas tree that Courfeyrac had unceremoniously dragged into Combeferre’s apartment and decorated with colorful, secondhand ornaments.

Bahorel trips over it now, taken aback by its sudden presence around his ankles, and Combeferre is smiling even as Bahorel brings him down with him, all that lionlike grace gone as they fall together amidst the bent branches and shattered ornaments, smelling like pine.

“Careful,” Combeferre warns, attempting to drag Bahorel upright--except no one is capable of dragging Bahorel anywhere, to his friends’ great misfortune. “If you get glass stuck in your skin you’ll actually have to go to a hospital, you know.”

Instead, Bahorel rolls over--and Combeferre winces, because rolling on the floor among a fallen Christmas tree and broken ornaments is a pretty good way to end up with glass in your skin--but Bahorel has all the luck, apparently, just looking up at Combeferre with a lazy smile as he stretches out of on the floor, kicking the tree more out of their way.

They don’t make it to the bedroom until much later.


End file.
